Marvel 1999 Week--Uncanny X-Men #369

Looking back at Marvel 1999, I'm stricken by the irony.

What irony is that??

Well, first off, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld made their bones on X-comics, right? Then they leave for greener pastures, while spending much of the next decade publicly dissing Marvel.

Then, after trying to unsuccessfully imitate those guys for much of that same decade, Marvel throws up the white flag, and actually comes up with a crazy plan to outsource many of their books to these guys' studios!!

But even though these guys were best known at Marvel for the X-books; and even though an X-villain was the plot catalyst for Heroes Reborn; and despite the fact that Marvel was giving relaunches to flagships like Hulk and Spider-Man that weren't even involved in Heroes Reborn...despite all that, the X-books were not included in Heroes Reborn, and were not given any kind of relaunch.

Life is weird sometimes, eh?

Because if any franchise were in need of a fresh start in 1999, it might have been the X-titles, which (to me) still seemed mired in a perpetual "find-a-hot-artist" phase from the middle 1990's, and also seemed stuck in the Claremont wannabe groove.

Case in point:

Uncanny X-Men #369. Now, from the cover, this may look like just another Juggernaut story. Oh, if only it were a straight-up fight like that. Nope, we're going 100% mental and extra-dimensional here...

I should note that in the late 1990s, Uncanny X-Men and Adjectiveless X-Men were essentially being run as one bi-weekly comic, with largely the same creative teams and different chapters of the same stories.

Which means that, if you don't have the issues of Adjectiveless, you might get confused (damn you, GITcorp discs!!). Or rather, I might get confused.

So let's see...in Uncanny X-Men #368, the X-Men were attending the funeral of Joseph, who was a clone of Magneto (!) and apparently a really swell guy. Then some aliens (?) showed up and hijacked our heroes to another planet/dimension. The story continued in Adjectiveless, and then continued again here, so we should be able to figure out what's what easily enough, right?

Huh?!? What the?!? How'd we get here? Who's responsible for this?!?

Well, they're not going to be any help. And Ororo's just as confused as we are...

Of, course, the answer is the old standby: lost in a psychic trance.

Sounds like it's time for some mutant-powered exposition:


So...the X-Men have been summoned by the Oktid (?) to save their race from a possessed and run-amok Juggernaut. But not just a normal possessed amok Juggernaut...


A mystically empowered super duper Cyttorak-spewing Juggernaut. Who is huge and can smash between dimensions and space-time. Because.

Special note about our guest, Black Tom Cassidy...you can tell he's a bad guy because he's Caucasian and has "black" in his name. I'm just sayin', not one of Claremont's better naming moments.

Anyhoo, Professor X's astral form is inside of Wolverine (ewwww), and they leap into the belly of the beast, as it were.

Oh, great, now we're in an astral plane/dreamscape, which I hate, because it's such a damned crutch for writers and artists. There are no rules on the astral planes, apparently, which frees them from logic and actually making sense. And allows for ridiculous deus ex machinas. Which is why the 90s X-Men relied on it so often.

Another benefit of the psychic realms? It enable really, really terrible jokes:


Seriously. He said that. Someone was actually paid to write that line.

Sigh...

Meanwhile, on whatever freaky mental plane Storm is trancin' on:

Oh, good...mental planes and mysterious omnipotent beings. That always makes for a good story.

Back to the boys, as Xavier finds the "real" Cain Marko and tries to comfort (and man up) the whiny beaten bully:

Then Storm lays down the law...

And Marko takes a punch, Frank Miller-style:





And while reality is ripping and shredding, Storm suddenly can somehow perfectly control those powers that, 5 seconds ago, she was "uncertain of how they might manifest themselves..."

Convenient. See what I mean about these psychic mumbo-jumbo stories?

So, who possessed the Juggernaut? Who was trying to destroy the Oktid? Why were the Trion such bitches? Why was Storm hanging with her Muppet Baby self? What the hell has been going on?!? Prepare to be choked with rushed, illogical psychobabble (click to enlarge, if you must, but I promise you, you'll only be hurting your brain):

Seriously. Not one syllable of that was hinted at previously. But they expected people to buy it.

Anyway, the Oktid are saved, they return the X-Men to Earth...but...

He's right, you know:

SPOILER ALERT: It's really a Skrull training world.

So, once again, we see why I never hopped back on the X-Men again. Because they were still living out their Image-wannabe era, trying to find artists who could plot (badly, obviously) and a penciller who , while "hot,"couldn't seem to string more than three issues together; more and more lame antics in "astral lands" and mental battles and stuff that was much better suited for Doctor Strange than the X-Men; and storylines and continuity so complex they'd baffle Mark Gruenwald. Blech.

So that's Marvel 1999. Some good stories, some icky. But Marvel was mostly free of the stigma of the 1990s, except in the canon that never got outsourced in the first place.Go figure.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Of course, the real reason Marvel never outsourced the X-Titles to Lee or Liefeld is that there were too damn many of them, and Marvel wouldn't let go of that much control of over a third of their line.

By my count, Marvel published 34 books cover dated June of 1999, and 13 of them were X-Titles. Along with the one we just covered, there was...

Cable #68...

Deadpool # 29...

Gambit #5...

Generation X #52...

Magneto Rex #2...

Mutant X #9...

Wolverine #139...

Wolverine/Punisher #1...

X-Force #91...

X-Man #52...

X-Men Unlimited #23...

...and Adjectiveless X-Men #89.

13 X-Titles...38% of your output. Great googly moogly.

Of course, it could have been worse...this coming Wednesday alone, Marvel will be releasing 39 comics, 12 of them X-Titles. Just. in. one. week.

Rats at the feeder pellet bar, anyone?